The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-12-26

Night of the Birth.
BROOKLYN, Dec. 25. Services today at
the Brooklyn Tabernacle were jubilant.
Profs. Browne and Ali, with organ and cor
net, were unusually powerful, and Mrs.
Florence Rice-Knox sang three solos The
thousands of people who packed the church
and all the approaches seemed to join in the
great chorus:
'He shall reign from pole to pole
With iilimitable sway;
He shall reign, when, like a scroll,
ionder heavens have passed away"
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage, ID, took as
the subject of his sermon, ''The barn and
its surrounding" His text was taken
from Luke ii, Is: 1.-THE shepherds said one
to another, let us now go even unto Bethle-
hem, and see this thing which is come to
pass" DR.. Talmage said:
One thousand years of the worlds exist
ence rolled painfully and YEARLY along, and
no Christ. Two thousand years, and no
Christ. Three thousand years, and no Christ.
Four thousand years, and no Christ. "Give
us Christi had cried Assyran and Per-
sian and Chaldean and Egyptian ciyliza-
tlons, but the lips of the earth and the lips
of the sky made no answer The world had
already been affiuent of genius Among
poets had appeared Homer and Thespis and
Aristophanes and Sopbocles and Euripides
and Alexis Eschylus, yet no Christ to be
the most poetic figure of the centuries.
Among historians had appeared Herodotus
and Xenophon and Thucydides, but no
Christ from whom all history was to date
backward and forward-B G. and A. D.
Among conouerors Camillus and Manlius
and Rap1Iltre aud Xanfiyoy,uS nd sI.rl
end Scipio and Pompey and CResar, yet no
Christ who was to be conqueror of earth
and heaven
But the slow century, and the slow year,
and the slow month, and the slow hour, at
last arrived. The world had had mathis or
concerts in the morning, and vespers or
concerts in the evening. but now it is to
have cencert at midnight. The black
window shutters of a December night we're
thrown open. and some of the best singers
of a world where they all sing stood there,
and putting back the .drapery of cloud
chanted peace anthem, until all the echoes
OF hill and valley applauded and encored
the hailelujah chorus
At last the world has Christ, and Just
the Christ it needs Come, let us go into
that Christmas scene as though we had
never before worShiped at the manger
Here is a Madonna worth looking at. ]
wonder not that the most frequent name in
all lands, and in all Christian centuries is
Mary. And there are Marys in palaces and
Marys in cabins, and though German and
French and Italian and Spanish and English
prouonnce it differently, they are all name
sakes OF the one whom we find on q bed
of straw with her pale face against the soft
cheek of Christ i'll the night of the Nativity
All the great painters have tried on canvas
to present Mary and her child and the Incl
cidents of that most famous night of the
worlds history. Raphael in three different
masterpieces celebrated them. Tintoret
and Guirlandjo surpassed themselves In the
Alteration of the Magi. Corregio needed to
do nothing more than his Mrdonna to be-
come immortal. The Madonna of the Lily,
by Leonardo da Vinci, win kindle the ad-
miratiOn of all ages. Murillo never won
greater triumph by his pencil than in his
presentation Of the Holy Family. But all
the galleries of Dresden are forgotten when
think Of the small room of that gallery
containing the Sistine Madonna. Yet all
of them were copies of st. Matthews
Madonna, and Luke's Madonna, tho inspired
Madonna of the Old Book, which we had
put into our hands when we were infants,
and that we hope to have under our heads
when we die
Behold, in the fl st place, that on the first
night of Christ's life God honored the brute
creation. You cannot get into that Bethle-
hem barn without going past the camels,
the mules, the dogs, the oxen. The brutes
of that stable heard the first cry of the in
FAINT Lord. Some of the old painters repre-
sent the oxen and camels kDeelng that
night before the new born babe. And well
might they kneel Have you ever thought
that Christ came, among other things, to al
leviate the sufferings of the brute creations
Was it not appropriate that he should, dur
ing the first few days and nights of bis life
on earth, be surrounded by the dumb beasts
whose moan and plant and believing have
for ages been a prayer to God for the arrest
ing of their tortures and the rignting
Of their wrongs, It did not
creatures of God should have been that
night in close neighborhood. Not kennel
in all the centuries, not birds nest, not a
worn-out horse on tow-path, not a herd
freezing in the poorly built COW pens not
freight car in summer time bringing the
beeves to market without water through
thousand miles of agony, not surgeons
room witnessing the struggles of fox, or
rabbit, or pigeon, or dog in the horrors of
vivisection but has an interest in the fact
that Christ was born in a stable surrounded
by brutes. He remembers that night and
the prayer he heard in their pitiful moan
he will answer in the punishment of those
who maltreat the dumb brutes. They
surely have as much right in this world as
we have.
In the first chapter Of Genesis you may
see that they were placed on the earth be-
fore man was, the fish and fowl created the
fifth day, and the quadruped the morning
of the sixth day, and man not until the
afternoon of that day. The whale, the
eagle, the lion, and all the lesser creatures
Of their kind were predecessors of the
human family. They have the world by
right Of possession. They have also paid
rent for the places they occupied. Whatan
army of defense all over the land are the
faithful watch dogs. And who
can tell what the world owes
TO horse, and camel, and OK for
transportation And robin and lark have
by the caitatas with which they have filed
orchard and forest. more than paid for the
few grains they have picked up for their
sustenance When you abuse any creature
of God you strike its creator, and you insult
the Christ who, though he might have been
welcomed into life By princes, and taken bis
first infantile slumber amid Tyrian plush
and canopied couches, and rippling waters
from royal aqleducfs dripping into basins
of ivory and pearl, chose TO be born on a
level with cows horn, or camel's hoof,
or o. dogs nostril that he might be the
alleviation OF brutal suffering as well as the
redeemer of man.
Standing then as imagine nowI do, in
that Bethlehem night with an infant Christ
on tine one side aad the speechless creatures
OF God on tho other, cry, Look out how
you strike the rowel into that horses side.
Take off that curbed bit from that bleeiing
- A n. ~.